Computer time problem.
 

Hi all. My computer keeps trying to travel into the future. I set the time and after a few hours it's an hour fast. Any ideas?

Do you have it set to the right time zone? It may try to change the time back to the real time if you are setting it and it's the wrong time zone. That's all I got.

No, it's not a time zone issue, but thanks. It just speeds up time, minute by minute. Right now it's 12:24PM and my computer thinks it's 3:37PM. Strange.

i dont know whats causing it but i use a program called stat bar on my computer. one of the features is that it can automatically sync's the comuters time to the atomic clock. this way the time is always correct.

Check the cmos battery, when they are low or dead, they can mess with the flow of time around your computer.

Yeah, the MoBo is like three years old. I thought about the battery. Thanks.

do a google search for Dimension4. It's a timekeeper program that stays hidden and quietly updates your clock as often as you want it to.

...but he wouldn't need to update the computer time, if the internal clock would work as it should.

Is this a recent problem, or did the motherboard have this problem right from the start? Did you check with the manufacturer, to see if this is a known problem, which may have been solved with a bios update?

try the battery, fix the problem, dont mask it.

Yep. A low battery can make the RTC lose its mind. Windows keeps its own version of time after checking with the RTC at boot, but verifies now and then with the RTC chip. If they don't match - software time is artificial and can be very inaccurate - Windows believes the chip. If the chip battery is low it'll start hearing noise as clock pulses and go nuts, and Windows will follow. Depends on the PC design as to how quickly and badly this happens.

You can also try double clicking on the clock in the bottom right corner and going to the Internet Time Tab. Have it sync with time.windows.com.

To add more time servers, find the registry key for DateTime Servers provided in full below and create a new string value. Name it the next number in sequence (usually '3') and set the data of the new value to equal the hostname or IP address of the time server.

You can also change the default server by setting the value of "(Default)" to the entry number of the required server.

System Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\DateTime\Servers]
Value Name: (Default)
Data Type: REG_SZ (String Value)
Value Data: Server Hostname or IP Address

To synchronize more often, find the W32Time registry key given below modify the existing value called "SpecialPollInterval". If you don't see SpecialPollInterval listed in this section, you can create it as a new DWORD value. The value of this should be set to the number of Seconds between sync attempts. If you wanted to check once per day, the value would be 86400.

System Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\W32Time\TimeProviders\NtpClient]
Value Name: SpecialPollInterval
Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)
Value Data: Seconds in Decimal

Note: If your computer (XP) is part of a domain, the Internet Time tab will not be available.

I'll prob just replace the battery. It's actually correct tonight, first time in over a week. Weird. Thanks for all the help though.